Supreme Court rejects cases on guns, Clean Water Act - Entrepreneur Generations

The Supreme Court mainly made news Monday for its ruling protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ workers (which has alarmed some faith-based organizations), but it's also a point of interest which cases the court rejected. Specifically, the court declined to hear a case that would have clarified whether suction dredge mining was subject to the Clean Water Act, and it also refused to hear multiple cases on gun rights.

In the mining case, the Eastern Oregon Mining Association sought to reverse a lower court's decision that the Clean Water Act covers mining activities that move stream bed material, Pamela King reports for Energy & Environment News. Increasingly strict state and federal laws could hurt mining companies financially and make it less likely for them to continue to develop new claims, said a mining association attorney.

According to an environmental law expert, "the court may not have wanted to dip its toe back into Clean Water Act issues after deciding a case that set a new standard for determining whether pollution that passes through groundwater on its way to jurisdictional waters should be subject to federal permitting," King reports. "The high court's 2019 term, he added, has created more uncertainty and risk of liability for companies that must comply with the Clean Water Act."

The Supreme Court also "declined to hear 10 Second Amendment cases, despite inconsistent gun law rulings by lower courts in recent years and clear interest among some justices to weigh in on how legal challenges over the right to bear arms are evaluated," Bill Lucia reports for Route Fifty.

The court has sidestepped major Second Amendment rulings for the past decade. A UCLA law professor suggested on Twitter that the trend was mostly due to Chief Justice John Roberts' reluctance to take up the matter, Lucia reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/3ecxAha Supreme Court rejects cases on guns, Clean Water Act - Entrepreneur Generations

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